What I'm arguing is that 'how the object appears' is dependent on the observer. 'What it is' can be specified in the case of physical objects, in terms of its quantifiable attributes, which appear to be observer-independent, but may better be thought of as 'measurably consistent for any observer' ... — Wayfarer

in other words, secondary and primary qualities, respectively. :up:

I was going to say something about that, but thought it might muddy the waters. But yes, that is what I had in mind.

It seems to me that at back of modern physicalism/materialism was the conviction that what can be specified in terms of those primary qualities are the only objective existents, while everything else belongs to the subjective realm of appearances. Which brings us back to:

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. — Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, Pp35-36

which in turn gave rise to the 'Cartesian anxiety'

Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".

Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.

Phenomenology seeks to remedy this condition by returning attention to the primacy of being - the reality of lived experience - *not* as something to analyse through science or metaphysics but through attention to 'what is’ - ‘dasein’.

(Things are falling into place…..)

Here I am presented with thinking deep enough to be appreciated, but at the same time, fraught with inconsistencies, prejudicial as they may be. Rather than have our dialectical histories repeat themselves, I’m just going to say thanks, and let it go.

I think the central issue here is in how we separate objects from their environment. Understanding things as existing separate from their surroundings is what seems to support the idea of "an object". Some things appear to be naturally distinct, and we can just pick them up and move them around, like a rock, a stick, etc., and some things even move around by other forces, like leaves in the breeze. This freedom to move around seems to support the designation of "object".

Then there are also natural things which are more difficult to separate out and move around, like minerals, copper, gold, lead, etc.. These seem to adhere within natural objects, yet we can separate them out, and give them objective existence on their own, as a separate object made of a particular element, or mineral. Bu now the description changes slightly, as the object is said to be "made of" that mineral

Both of these instances of providing for real objects, with independent existence, consist of a process of dividing our surroundings, the environment, to create the reality of objects through this act of division. This division has two aspects, theory and practise, and the two are consistent and compatible in the proper method of science.

Beyond this, there are properties, attributes, which do not seem to be able to be separated in this way. These are what are proper to sensation, taste, smell, colour, etc.. We can say a lot about these properties, even distinguish them from each other as types, but we cannot properly separate them in the environment, and move them around as objects. So these we do not assign full objective existence to. These properties, if we talk about them as objects, are better classified as imaginary, fictional objects, because we cannot seem to be able to give them proper independent existence in practise.

If I were an auto salesperson, what would I make of this in my everyday experience? — jgill

The expression, "sell the sizzle not the steak" comes to mind. Another is about men and big or fancy cars and compensating. Of course it depends on the customer but appearance sells.

Would it make a difference were I to be a mathematician? — jgill

Maybe. Mathematicians talk about beauty, elegance, and simplicity, but although they are attracted to these things what is decisive is whether things "add up".

But the object is what appears in experience ... — Wayfarer

No. What appears in experience is not the object but the object as it appears.

How do you differentiate between the object as it is in itself, and as it appears to us? That is the question. — Wayfarer

How it appears to me might be different from how it appears to you. How it appears might be different under different conditions. Are we talking about the same object or different objects when there is a difference in appearance?

These properties, if we talk about them as objects, are better classified as imaginary, fictional objects, because we cannot seem to be able to give them proper independent existence in practise.

I'd suggest "proper independent existence" is itself a fiction.

I agree(?) that the way our perceptual systems are apt to chunk stuff, and even sequences of events, into things tends to lead to misconceptions, but in many cases I would be more inclined to call 'things' being discussed "simplistic but epistemically pragmatic abstractions" rather than fictions.

Thoughts?

How it appears to me might be different from how it appears to you. How it appears might be different under different conditions. Are we talking about the same object or different objects when there is a difference in appearance? — Fooloso4

That’s the whole point - you can't get outside the appearance to see it as it 'truly is'. But it's a more subtle question that whether an object really exists or is 'only in the mind'. My view is that it really exists, but that the very notion of existence always implies an observer for whom it exists, in line with the 'Copenhagen interpretation' of physics (and with Schopenhauer's philosophy). And that furthermore, the observer is not, as it were, in the frame.

I think the central issue here is in how we separate objects from their environment. — Metaphysician Undercover

Thoughts? — wonderer1

The mind-independent world is not naturally divided into individual parts: At the most fundamental level, we can say that external reality is a continuous flow of ongoing cosmic process. Consequently, facts or events in the sense of individual happenings do not exist in the universe at large. When you speak of a fact or event, you mean something bounded that has been lifted out of the flow of continuous activity. Since a fact must be very precisely extruded from the background, this requires that the observer who lifts it out have a purpose—a motive for undertaking to extract this one particular thing. In a universe without an observer having a purpose, you cannot have facts. As you may judge from this, a fact is something far more complex than it appears to be at first sight. In order for a fact to exist, it must be preceded by a segmentation of the world into separate things, and requires a brain that is able to extract it from the background in which it is immersed. — Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p92)

Right, it is merely a logical or conceptual distinction, and according to its own lights cannot ever be anything more than that. And yet the distinction seems to be the catalyst for so much speculation. Given the completely unknowable character of the noumena as it is defined can it provide any cogent grounds for such speculation? — Janus

Hey Janus.

It is a foundational unprovable assumption/premiss, resting its laurels on terminological consistency(coherence) and/or 'logical' possibility alone(scarequotes intentional).

Indeed, there are all sorts of things that could be said to follow from it, if accompanied by some other premisses, but - by my lights anyway - 'logical' possibility alone does not warrant belief, and untenability is completely unacceptable.

Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p92)

Sounds like an interesting book.

Recommend it. Not a philosophy text per se but with many interesting philosophical implications.

Something that occurs to me in respect of this argument: when people say they're 'sceptics' in this day and age, you can bet your boots they generally mean 'scientific sceptics', i.e. they will question anything for which there isn't or may not be scientific evidence. Yet 'scientific scepticism' generally starts with the firm belief that the 'sensory domain' (a.k.a. 'the natural realm') is inherently real. They're never sceptical about the obvious reality of the sensory domain in a manner that is very different to ancient scepticism, which would call the reality of the sensible world into question. I think that's because the juggernaut of modern Western culture has demolished all the alternatives. The world of the ancients had another dimension - nowadays politely described as 'mythological' - which embodied a dimension of depth. Whereas, as one of the Vienna Circle positivists put it, 'in science there are no depths - there's surface everywhere' ~ Rudolf Carnap.

Something that occurs to me in respect of this argument: when people say they're 'sceptics' in this day and age, you can bet your boots they generally mean 'scientific sceptics', i.e. they will question anything for which there isn't or may not be scientific evidence. Yet 'scientific scepticism' generally starts with the firm belief that the 'sensory domain' (a.k.a. 'the natural realm') is inherently real. They're never sceptical about the obvious reality of the sensory domain in a manner that is very different to the ancient sceptics

I see skepticism as something needing a degree of balance, and think there is a tendency for some philosophers (or philosophy fans) to go off the skeptical deep end.

For me personally, I've studied too much about sensation and perception, and neuroscience more generally, to be naive about the degree to which we can grasp reality as it truly is. On the other hand, as an electrical engineer, it seems rather ludicrous to think that we are having a discussion via the internet, yet there is no external reality.

Idealism seems to me an example of philosophy poisoning.

Hello Foolos4,

In Chalmers own words, from "The Hard Problem of Consciousness":

I didn’t find anything I disagree with in the quote from Chalmers you made: was there something in it you thought is a problem for my view?

This example works against your claim. If I am anesthetized I do not dream. Signals in the nervous system are blocked.

Firstly, it was an analogy to demonstrate that, under idealism, the “transmission” is fundamentally immaterial (i.e., mental) and not physical. The physical “transmission” is the extrinsic representation of the mental.

Secondly, anesthesia causing you to not dream and the signals in the nervous system being blocking thereby is expected under idealism too (and definitely doesn’t go against the theory). Anesthesia, like everything else, is fundamentally mental under idealism, and the outward expression of the mental idea of anesthesia disrupting your mind (mentally) is the blocking of signals in the nervous system (which can be observed empirically when someone is under anesthesia). The idea behind the analogy was not to take it so far as to say that you must dream for mental transmissions to occur but, rather, that in the same manner that your mind (even under physicalism) produces conscious experience during sleep via immaterial ideas so is it the case with reality.

Bob

Hello Janus,

So, you agree there is a mind-independent world, you just don't agree that it is physical?

Good question: no. I agree that there is a reality which transcends your and my mind (i.e., our experience as conscious beings), but that reality is not fundamentally mind-independent.

Likewise, since I deny that reality is “made up of” mind-independent things, I also hold that it is not physical (because ‘physical’ entails, in the formal sense of the term, mind-independence).

I have no argument with that since the definition of 'physical' derives from how things appear to us: tangible and measurable.

You may be using the colloquial sense of the term ‘physical’ (i.e., objects with solidity, size, shape, etc. within our experience): I don’t deny that kind of physicality. I deny the physicalists idea of ‘physical’: mind-independent objects (or parts more generally speaking).

I think Kant's claim that we don't know what things are in themselves stands

I disagree: I think schopenhauer finished Kant’s project by correcting this error of Kant’s. Being self-conscious, we are uniquely able to acquire the thing-in-itself: mind (i.e., what schopenhauer called will). We can understand the reality has two sides: mind (subject) and object. They are not completely separate but, rather, two sides of the same coin. When I will for my arm to raise, it manifests in conscious experience as an potential infinite chain of causality. The chain, according to schopenhauer, is not the complete explanation of what happened but it is all we have access to when it comes to every aspect of reality other than ourselves. We only ‘see’ the world from both of its sides within our own introspective conscious experience: otherwise, Kant would be correct in that we would have no clue what the thing-in-itself is.

Saying that things are fundamentally mental is an example of the same kind of category error, because 'mental' is a term denoting how certain phenomena: thoughts, feelings, volitions and so on, seem to us. That is to say they seem to be different than the objects of the senses in that they seem intangible and are not measurable.

I think this would follow if Kant were correct in saying that we never come to understand the noumena—but we can. The mental activity is outwardly expressed as physicality. When I am sad, the extrinsic representation of that is tears and, if one were to biologically test me, certain hormonal secretions.

meaning that the former can be reductively modeled in a mechanical or causal way, and the latter cannot, which makes it seem as though there will always be am unbridgeable explanatory gap.

I agree with this part. However, the idea with analytic idealism is that the mental events are expressed as physical events but yet the former do not “cause” the latter (in the sense of the typical physical causation).

I have never heard a convincing argument that this gap can somehow be crossed by an explanation that holds together on both sides of it

What problem do you have with positing the physical as an outward expression of the mental?

Bob

On the other hand, as an electrical engineer, it seems rather ludicrous to think that we are having a discussion via the internet, yet there is no external reality. — wonderer1

It's not nearly so black-and-white. It's not a question of whether things exist or don't exist, or whether they're all 'in the mind' (and if so who's mind). It's much more subtle than that. The reality is a continuum that includes both object and subject.

We're very much conditioned to be oriented with respect to the objective domain - the process of 'objectification'. It's woven into the fabric of the culture. If you read some of the idealist philosophers - Berkeley and Schopenhauer, for example - you will see they are quite sane and sober individuals.

Hello Alkis Piskas,

So, if you find a philosophical term that combines both these two kinds of philosphical views, I would be much obliged!

I am not sure I am familiar with a term that means a hybrid view of rationalism and empiricism; but, then again, I would need you to explain further what you mean by those terms to give a more precise answer.

For example, I do know that many modern-day empiricists do hold that there is a priori knowledge.

However, Eastern philosophers, as well as Western ones who have borrowed elements from Eastern philosophy, as I have already mentioned, talk a lot about metaphysical subjects but they almost always offer a detailed description of as well as examples for them

Could you give an example of such a detailed description of consciousness?

Yet, "obscurity" and lack of explanation for me means lack of real undestanding. And this holds for both physical and non-physical things.

There is always going to be some obscurities in any metaphysical theories one takes: metaphysics is about trying to maximize explanatory power while minimizing the explanatory parts. It isn’t even apparent that we will one day be able to definitively understand the entirety of reality.

In terms of Einstein, I would think that what he meant was that one should be able to articulate their position concisely and precisely to opponents, which is what you have to do for little children or else it goes straight past there heads. It doesn’t violate his principle to explain to a child that we don’t know: it is clear and simple what it means for one to not know. On the contrary, Einstein is referring to (I would think) sophistry and rhetoric that can convolute and even mask bad positions as somewhat feasible.

Yes, I know that. Yet, it does not explain what "consciousness" is. This was my point.

If by “explain what ‘consciousness’ is” you are asking how it works, then only via empirical inquiry will we find out. If by that question you are asking for a deeper ontology, then that will not be afforded in analytic idealism because the universal mind (i.e., consciousness) is posited as metaphysical necessary. Every metaphysical theory has to have a bedrock (i.e., something that is unexplainable) and for objective idealism it is mind. For physicalism, it is some sort of elementary particle or quantum field or what have you. There is no way to account for reality completely without hitting a rock bottom.

But there are a few I know that have descibed this quite well and in a plausible way.

Could you give an example?

Still, I can safely say, as general description, that consciousness is perception

Interesting. For analytic idealism, consciousness is not synonymous with perception. “Perception” is used to denote conscious beings that have evolved to have the faculties to represent its environment to itself (viz., to take in sensations/input and generate an understanding of the causal order and such). Consciousness is a broader term (under analytic idealism) that includes all mind-operative mental processes. The universal mind, for instance, does not perceive: it is more fundamental, primitive willing which operates blind of itself and others. Think of it like the difference between plants, which will on a basis of very basic stimulus responses, vs. a complex animal (like a dog): the plant is perceiving anything but yet, under analytic idealism, is conscious.


Bob

Hello TheMadMan,

By materialistic I don't mean the materialism worldview.

I see.

Although I am not sure I entirely understood your post yet, let me try to adequately respond.

By materialistic I mean the mind obeys space-time.

Although I am not entirely sold on this part, Analytic Idealism would posit that our minds are alters of a universal mind, and space and time only emerge as a production of perceptive conscious beings. In terms of analytic idealism, the world around you that you are perceiving is fundamentally the unfolding in space and time (which are synthetic but arguably not a priori in the sense schopenhauer exactly meant it) of eternal platonic ideas. Although space and time do not behave necessarily as we would intuit from normal every day-to-day experience, they are also within the eternal ideas as we are, as evolved emergent perceptive and self-conscious beings, a part of those eternal ideas.

Honestly, I am not entirely sold on this part yet, but that would be the response.

In every metaphysical theory, I find there is the problem of accounting for the inevitable eternal somehow continually “converting” into something temporal—and I don’t know how to account for it adequately under any theory.

1. the duality of mind (spacetime) and 2. the non-duality of non-mind (spacetime-less)

Are you saying that the mind can “switch” (so to speak) between two modes of existence or perceptive capabilities?

I mean that you simply cannot express it fully since systems of thought will always be limited.
And yes in different periods of human history it has to adapt and evolve to make sense.

I agree.

Bob

Hello Mww,

There isn’t a proof, per se, only an internal affirmative logical consistency.

I just mean what is the case for it? What do you mean by it being an internal affirmative logical consistency? I don’t think it is necessarily the case that the mind fundamentally uses if conditionals (for example) to produce perceptive experience (although it might).

Yes, I could elaborate on the rationality justifying the categories, but to do so is a foray into the seriously transcendental, which may be a different idealism then is represented in the theme of your thread.

I would prefer if you did elaborate on it, so I can understand the argument for those categories better!

Bob

Hello creativesoul,

Without appeal to obscurity, reductive physicalist approaches can account for qualia at least as well as any other position.

I disagree: it can’t account for it at all. The fact that the brain interprets the world mechanically in this manner and that those processes have a “causal” (or correlative) relationship with mental states doesn’t account for the mental states themselves at all. Under reductive physicalism, we should expect no qualia: just philosophical zombies. Under idealism, we should expect no philosophical zombies but rather rich, conscious subjects.

I would argue better than, especially if obscurity is unacceptable.

Could you please elaborate? How so?

There's a need for you to elaborate on exactly what counts as qualia, for that is precisely what any approach is supposed to be taking account of

Qualia is subjective, qualitative, and conscious experience (e.g., the subjective feeling of pain, subjective seeing redness, subjective touching of a book, etc.). The bare minimum criteria is that the event is a mental, subjective, and conscious experience.

The position you're working from and/or arguing in favor of presupposes that there is a distinction between biological machinery doing it's job and so-called 'subjective' experience.

It’s not so much that there is such a distinction in actuality but, rather, that the reductive physicalist account on explains biological machinery and doesn’t account for the subjectivity. I, as an idealis, can happily grant that, since mental events are primal, there is no biological machinery doing something completely separately from subjective experience (however, under physicalism, all we get is an explanation of the biological machinery).

I'm also quite unsure of the invocation of 'mechanical awareness', in terms of AI or something akin. I've not likened experience to that, nor would I. It's a red herring. Unnecessary distraction.

I am not sure I followed this part: could you please elaborate? How is mechanical awareness a red herring?

My point was that reductive physicalism expects and explains the world in a manner that only expects and explains mechanical awareness (akin to a future AI or something as a mere analogy) and not qualitative experience. It is utterly shocking under a physicalist view that we are conscious.

Exactly what qualia are you and other proponents of the hard problem saying that reductive physicalism cannot account for?

Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but my claim is not that they can’t account for a particular subgroup of qualia but, rather, all of it. Not a single mental event is explained as actually produced by brain states nor could it be explained in that reductive physicalist manner. All they can do is point to another correlation (or causation) between mental and physical states which doesn’t further progress the physicalistic explanation of qualia.

Bob

Without appeal to obscurity, reductive physicalist approaches can account for qualia at least as well as any other position. I would argue better than, especially if obscurity is unacceptable. — creativesoul

I disagree: it can’t account for it at all. — Bob Ross

Exactly what qualia are you and other proponents of the hard problem saying that reductive physicalism cannot account for? — creativesoul

...my claim is not that they can’t account for a particular subgroup of qualia but, rather, all of it. — Bob Ross

Well, as above shows nicely, you've just contradicted yourself. I'm not sure what you're claiming. Perhaps it's better to take this slowly. Our respective positions are very different, and that seems to be on a foundational/fundamental level. Right now, I'm just wanting to ensure that I am aiming at the right target, so to speak. So, I ask...

Exactly what qualia are you and other proponents of the hard problem saying that reductive physicalism cannot account for?

We're very much conditioned to be oriented with respect to the objective domain - the process of 'objectification'. It's woven into the fabric of the culture. If you read some of the idealist philosophers - Berkeley and Schopenhauer, for example - you will see they are quite sane and sober individuals.

The process of objectification goes deeper than cultural conditioning. It is a function of how our brains work:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aircAruvnKk

Hello creativesoul,

Well, as above shows nicely, you've just contradicted yourself.

Where is the contradiction in the quotes of mine you mentioned? They both claim that physicalism cannot account for qualia.

I'm not sure what you're claiming

I am claiming that reductive physicalism cannot account, under its reductive physicalist approach, for qualitative experience (e.g., subjective feeling, subjective sense of touch, etc.) other than by obscurely saying it “somehow” produces it.

Perhaps it's better to take this slowly. Our respective positions are very different, and that seems to be on a foundational/fundamental level. Right now, I'm just wanting to ensure that I am aiming at the right target, so to speak. So, I ask...

Exactly what qualia are you and other proponents of the hard problem saying that reductive physicalism cannot account for?

Taking it slow sounds good to me! My answer was:

Not a single mental event is explained as actually produced by brain states nor could it be explained in that reductive physicalist manner. All they can do is point to another correlation (or causation) between mental and physical states which doesn’t further progress the physicalistic explanation of qualia.

Did you find this to be an unsatisfactory answer? To try to say it in other words, reductive physicalism cannot account for qualia, not just any particular aspect of qualia. To me, it is like you are asking “which red trucks can they not explain?” and I am answering “all red trucks”. Are you asking “what a red truck is?” (essentially). Because qualia is subjective, qualitative experience (e.g., subjective feeling, subjective touch, etc.). It is the conscious mental experience that you have every day and every waking moment of your life.

Bob

The process of objectification goes deeper than cultural conditioning — wonderer1

Of course. The Charles Pinter book incorporates a great deal of neuroscience, as do Donald Hoffman's books challenging scientific realism, and which are generally said to support a kind of philosophical idealism or constructivism. On the other hand, I think philosophy should provide the ability to explore the matter directly without needing to rely on neuroscientific research. After all, Socrates was recommended to 'know thyself' by the Oracle of Delphi, and I don't know if his endeavours were hampered by the absence of modern neuroscience.

Another thing to bear in mind are the discoveries of neuroplasticity and how neural configurations can be changed 'top-down' so to speak. Neuroplasticity has shown that mental activity influences brain structure, that engaging in specific mental activities, such as learning a new skill or practicing a particular cognitive task, can lead to structural changes in the brain. For example, studies have shown that individuals who learn to juggle experience an increase in gray matter volume in areas involved in motor control. Another fascinating study showed that subjects who learned to practice piano in their minds (i.e. no actual piano!) showed neurological changes similar to those who practiced with a piano (ref).

I suppose cultural conditioning might also affect neural configurations and not necessarily in a good way. After all hardly a week goes by without stories of epidemics of depression and anxiety in teens caused by exposure to social media. It's quite possible that many cultural memes that are held by many people are neither grounded in reality nor beneficial.

What is the conscious mental experience that I have every day and every waking moment of my life?

Exactly what qualia are you referring to?

Is obscurity allowed now?

What problem do you have with positing the physical as an outward expression of the mental? — Bob Ross

This is the crux of the issue for me. I am unconvinced by Schopenhauer's (and Kastrup's derivative) claims that we know the "in-itself" on the basis of some kind of postulated intellectual intuition; this cannot be knowledge but is just a feeling. Maybe that feeling is even correct, but how could we ever know? Of course, if that feeling is certain enough, then doubts would become irrelevant to the one who feels certain, but that feeling could only be relevant for those who might experience such certainty; it remains discursively useless, since the certainty cannot be demonstrated empirically or logically, which means that despite the fact that there might be such certainty, it could still be mistaken.

Another significant problem I have with the idea is that there is a huge body of consistent and coherent scientific evidence that tells us there we many cosmological events long before there were any minds. In order to accept the view that mind is fundamental I would need to discount all that evidence.

It is a foundational unprovable assumption/premiss, resting its laurels on terminological consistency(coherence) and/or 'logical' possibility alone(scarequotes intentional).

Indeed, there are all sorts of things that could be said to follow from it, if accompanied by some other premisses, but - by my lights anyway - 'logical' possibility alone does not warrant belief, and untenability is completely unacceptable. — creativesoul

OK, I don't see it that way: I think that the attributes of things that can be revealed in perception could not be exhaustive of what they are unless some form of idealism were true, and idealism seems very implausible to me. So, it's as I said a logical or conceptual distinction between things as they are perceived and things as they are in themselves, but I don't see the idea that things have their own existence independently of perception as being a mere logical possibility.

I didn’t find anything I disagree with in the quote from Chalmers you made: was there something in it you thought is a problem for my view? — Bob Ross

Here is what I said, and your response:

The question of why and how biological functions give rise to experience has everything to do with science!

What you described here is a purported soft problem of consciousness, — Bob Ross

How does what I say differ from the hard problem as described by Chalmers? He concludes:

It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.

If experience arises from a physical basis, then the question of why and how biological function gives rise to experience, is the hard problem. If, as Chalmers says, physical processing give rise to a rich inner life then how and why that should be, then I would not have thought it necessary to state the obvious, science deals with the physical, with biological function.

Now you might think that science will not yield an answer, but that does not mean investigating the problem scientifically is not an investigation of the hard problem.

The physical “transmission” is the extrinsic representation of the mental. — Bob Ross

The physical transmission is not an extrinsic representation, it is the medium through which data is transmitted.

Secondly, anesthesia causing you to not dream and the signals in the nervous system being blocking thereby is expected under idealism too — Bob Ross

If the signals in the nervous system are blocked that shows that the transmission of data is physical.

Anesthesia, like everything else, is fundamentally mental under idealism ... — Bob Ross

This makes no sense. An anesthesiologist uses drugs not something mental. She does not rely on hypnosis.

...the outward expression of the mental idea of anesthesia disrupting your mind — Bob Ross

Again, it is specific drugs that cause anesthesia. Drugs are not the outward expression of the mental. These drugs affect awareness, they disrupt the mind.

Another significant problem I have with the idea is that there is a huge body of consistent and coherent scientific evidence that tells us there we many cosmological events long before there were any minds. In order to accept the view that mind is fundamental I would need to discount all that evidence. — Janus

I don't think so. The issue here is that Kastrup would agree that conscious creatures emerged 'later' and the cosmological events or the 'reality' we have detected which predate life, like consciousness, is simply what mind looks like when viewed from a different perspective. We know it as 'physical'. In other words, inanimate objects and process are all aspects of consciousness, so there is no contradiction inherent in a notion of pre-life.

I'm a physicalist but I am open to 'steel manning' the idealist position as well as I can and trying to understand the model as best as I can.

My understanding of the narrative Kastrup presents is that all we know and can detect is consciousness as seen through a different perspective (across a dissociative divide). At the heart of this there is a Mind at Large - striving, instinctive, and not metacognitive. Conscious creatures emerged as dissociated alters from this great mind and have evolved. So evolution for Kastrup is a real thing, but it isn't physical - it manifests as physical to us and leaves its fossils and detritus, much as we have memories about our own past.

So we need to accept quite a narrative for all this to make sense to us. And critical to this idealist position it seems is Mind at Large or cosmic consciousness which provides the foundation for this account.

The question we can ask of this scenario is why did a great mind splinter off and develop dissociated alters over time (as we understand time) is consciousness engaged in an act of getting to know itself? What is the significance of our metacognition in this narrative?

On the other hand, I think philosophy should provide the ability to explore the matter directly without needing to rely on neuroscientific research. After all, Socrates was recommended to 'know thyself' by the Oracle of Delphi, and I don't know if his endeavours were hampered by the absence of modern neuroscience.

Can you provide additional reasoning for why you think "philosophy should provide the ability to explore the matter directly without needing to rely on neuroscientific research." After all, Socrates was a rather enigmatic figure who is said to have said:

"For I was conscious that I knew practically nothing..." (Plato, Apology 22d, translated by Harold North Fowler, 1966). [c/p from wikipedia]

Furthermore, neuroscience points to us being much too complex to know ourselves in a comprehensive sense.

Another thing to bear in mind are the discoveries of neuroplasticity and how neural configurations can be changed 'top-down' so to speak. Neuroplasticity has shown that mental activity influences brain structure, that engaging in specific mental activities, such as learning a new skill or practicing a particular cognitive task, can lead to structural changes in the brain. For example, studies have shown that individuals who learn to juggle experience an increase in gray matter volume in areas involved in motor control. Another fascinating study showed that subjects who learned to practice piano in their minds (i.e. no actual piano!) showed neurological changes similar to those who practiced with a piano (ref).

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here.

I suppose cultural conditioning might also affect neural configurations and not necessarily in a good way.

Certainly cultural conditioning affects neural configurations in what we would judge to be good and bad ways. However, fMRI doesn't have nearly the spatial resolution required to be able to measure the changes, except in cases of relatively extreme repetition (like the 'piano practice'). So I don't expect neuroscientists to be able to detect the neurological results of exposure to a meme via fMRI anytime soon. At this point in time it would take more invasive technologies and some degree of luck to detect such subtle changes without causing brain damage.

I agree(?) that the way our perceptual systems are apt to chunk stuff, and even sequences of events, into things tends to lead to misconceptions, but in many cases I would be more inclined to call 'things' being discussed "simplistic but epistemically pragmatic abstractions" rather than fictions. — wonderer1

The issue I tried to point to was the difference between an object and a property. We tend to differentiate between a thing and a property of the thing. So for example, the colour red is a property. If we make "red" itself into an object (an intelligible object), what I called an imaginary or fictional object, then we ought to recognized the difference between this type of object, and the thing which we say is red.


The importance of individuation, and how we individuate, is I think key to understanding the so-called wave function collapse of quantum physics. We approach the microscopic from a perspective derived from our experience with the macro. From the macro scale, we understand the continuity of physical existence through principles of mass and inertia, these are the properties of assumed "objects". So these concepts, "object", "mass", "inertia", are all tied together under our experience of temporal continuity, and they form the grounding or substance for "continuity".

But when the physicists go to the micro scale, the principles for temporal continuity are based in energy rather than mass, and there are conversion principles. The temporal continuity is then expressed as a wave function. However, to take a measurement of that continuous existence of energy, which is expressed as the wave function, we employ the principles of mass and inertia, meaning that the energy must be converted through the principles, to be represented as a thing, a particle. We could call it a sort of interaction problem. There is an immaterial realm of wave existence, grasped only by the mind. And, there is also the material objects which we have come to know through our senses which we have become very familiar with. There is a certain incommensurability, as the principles do not quite jive. I would say that we ought to take heed of our past experience, and recognize that we need to be vey skeptical of knowledge derived from sensation.